


Photo & References As Requested

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Corporate, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Awesome Molly, BAMF Molly, Boss/Employee Relationship, Declarations Of Love, EVERYTHING GOES WRONG, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Happy Ending, Making Up, POV Molly Hooper, Personal Ads, Revenge, Secrets, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Feelings, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Sherlock Is A Fraud, Sherlock is Not a Virgin, Tom Is A Dick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7114570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Molly realizes she needs a date for a high-profile charity event she’s decided she’s tired of attracting only wankers who are looking to further their own careers. She tells her PA Sherlock that she has certain criteria she wants met for any potential date, as well as a photograph and references from three women before she’ll even consider them. She’s quite surprised, then, when she only has one file to consider a week later, and even more surprised to see who it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DalekandtheTARDISat221B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DalekandtheTARDISat221B/gifts).



> So yesterday was my good friend **DalekandtheTARDISat221B** 's birthday, and I offered to write her a fic for it, and she asked for fluffy Sherlolly fic. I've had this idea sitting for a while (I put out a general prompt [here](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/133170541188/general-het-or-femmeslash-sherlock-prompt) a while back inspired by a quote from the show Murder In Suburbia that went “I need a color photograph and at least three female references before I agree to go on a date.”) and decided the story should be multiple chapters, so I hope it's okay I'm only giving you chapter 1 as a present. ::hugs:: Happy birthday, sweetie!

Molly sighed as she looked at the invitation to the charity gala that her company was requiring all of its higher level corporate employees to go to. She usually loved events like this if she could go alone, but the last few times she had gone sans date she had been subjected to very awkward questions from some of the older gentlemen at the firm as well as their well-meaning wives. Weren’t career women supposed to be single and focused on their jobs, she thought? Why should it be strange if she showed up to these events alone?

But she supposed they were old school. Women of her age should have a well-educated man in the background, being the breadwinner, even if she could damn well take care of herself. And most men who gravitated towards her these days? They weren’t looking to take care of _her_. They were looking to take care of _themselves_ , get a leg up on their own careers, whatever they might be. She had thought her last serious relationship might have been different, but as soon as Tom had gotten the cushy position with her competitor he’d let her know in no uncertain terms exactly how unneeded she was now.

It had been a low blow but a much-needed lesson: don’t let your heart rule your head. It never bodes well and it never ends well, either.

There was a knock on her office door and she looked up to see one of her best mates standing there, holding a similar invitation in her hand. She smiled over at Sally Donovan and motioned for her to come in. “I see you got one in the office mail as well,” Molly said with a smile, leaning back in her office chair.

Sally nodded. “I think this is one of those events where they want the entire team to put in an appearance,” Sally said, coming in and sitting across from Molly’s at her desk. “Masquerade balls can be fun, though. Especially with a Mardi Gras theme. Probably not quite as fun as if we were actually in New Orleans, but I imagine it might not be quite as gaudy.”

“But isn’t that the point of Mardi Gras?” Molly asked with a smile.

Sally chuckled. “That’s the common misinterpretation, but the history is pretty rich. I imagine there will be a bit of gaudiness at this masquerade ball, though, even with the list of costume dos and donts.” Sally tapped her invitation in her hand. “Greg said there’s a bloke in the accounting department--”

Molly groaned and leaned her head back against the back of her seat, shutting her eyes. “I adore your fiancee, Sally, but when it comes to him setting me up on blind dates, his taste is abominable. Remember Brad? That was one of the blokes he set me up with.”

“That was the one with the mummy complex?” Sally asked. Molly lifted up her head and nodded, and Sally winced. “Yeah. I’ll tell him thanks but no thanks.” She thought for a moment. “You could always put out a personal ad. Or hire an escort.”

“Oh, both of those sound so desperate,” Molly said with a soft groan.

“The gala is four and a half weeks away,” Sally interjected. “If you put out a personal ad today, or have your PA do it, you could squeeze in a few dates so at least it isn’t a _first_ date.”

“And just what am I going to say in a personal ad, Sal?” Molly asked, raising an eyebrow. “I need a color photograph and at least three female references before I agree to go on a date?”

Sally considered it. “Why not? It’s a bit much, but, I mean, you’ve got high standards. You can also ask for a professional. No baristas or artists who only want to mooch off of you.”

“Yeah, but either of those probably wouldn’t look at the event as a smorgasbord of contacts to ply to further their own careers,” she said dejectedly.

Sally gave her a sympathetic look. “You’re still upset about Tom,” she said.

“Did you see the announcement pages in the Times yesterday?” Molly said quietly. “He’s marrying the cunt he was seeing on the side when he used me to get the position at Magnussen Publishing.”

Sally’s face got even more sympathetic if that was possible, and she got out of her chair to move around the desk to give Molly a hug. “Bloody hell,” she said as Molly hugged her back. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” Molly said, resting her chin on Sally’s shoulder and shutting her eyes. “He’s a massive arsehole, I know that, and I know I shouldn’t care, but he got the position he'd been scheming for and he makes more money than I do and he’s bloody happy and now he’s getting married, and I’m miserable and alone and it’s just so bloody unfair.”

“He’ll get his, love,” Sally said. “Karma will give him a kick in the arse at some point, I know it will.” Sally pulled away and stayed squatting so she was close to eye level with Molly before reaching over to grasp her hand and give it a friendly squeeze. “You just have to keep your chin up. It _will_ work out in your favour, I swear.”

“I hope so.”

There was another knock on the door and Molly’s PA, Sherlock Scott, knocked. “Ms. Hooper, you have a teleconference with Random House in thirty minutes,” he said, coming in with a pile of papers. “The marketing department sent over their revisions to what they can do with the current campaign and legal sent over revisions as to what our company can agree to with them and what we can’t. And you have another meeting with a group of potential authors in an hour and a half to go over pitch ideas. I’ve allotted twenty minutes per author and there are six authors. And then there’s lunch with Mary Watson at Baltic at one.” He stopped when he saw Sally and Molly in the position they were in. “Sorry for the intrusion.”

“No, it’s all right,” Sally said, straightening up. “I was just leaving.” She glanced back at Molly. “Just remember, it’ll all work out, all right?”

Molly nodded. “All right,” she said. Sally made her way around the desk and then left the office, and Molly moved her chair closer to her desk as Sherlock moved closer to it. “Thank you for all this, Sherlock.”

He shrugged slightly. “I do the best I can to help you,” he said.

“You do more than your best,” she said with a smile. “Ever since you became my PA, everything’s become much...better. I owe you so much.”

He smiled, just slightly. Sherlock rarely smiled. He rarely showed any emotion, really, except on rare occasions when it was just the two of them. She liked to think he had some fondness for her, perhaps buried deep down. “I recognize good talent and try and nurture it. I doubt the company would do well if you left.”

“They could weather on without me,” she said, blushing slightly.

“Bollocks,” he said, in a surprising display of fierceness. “You’re...essential.”

She looked up at him with slightly wide eyes and then felt a smile settle on her face. “Well, thank you for your confidence in me, Sherlock. I’ll make sure to prove it’s not displaced.” She glanced at the invitation. “Could you...do me a favour of a personal nature? I need to place an advert in the personals.”

“Oh?” he asked, rather nonchalantly.

“I need a date for the charity gala that the corporate employees need to attend. If I attend another event on my own I’m sure eyebrows will be raised. I had thought...perhaps asking for a colour photograph and three female references might be a start? And he needs to be a professional of some sort, I suppose."

Sherlock pursed his lips together slightly. “Might I make some other improvements? To make sure no schemers or gold diggers try and take advantage of you again?”

She nodded vigorously. “I’d appreciate it,” she said, giving him a grateful smile.

“I’ll work on it around other tasks,” he said. “If you have no other need of me, perhaps I’ll start now.”

“Thank you, Sherlock,” she said. She watched him turn and leave the room, and then she leaned back in the seat again. It all seemed so silly, putting out a personal advertisement, but perhaps if it saved her the embarrassment of going to the event alone it would be worth it.

Or at least she hoped so.


	2. Chapter 2

She went through her meetings for the day, hearing some rather good pitches but nothing that stirred her that she’d sign them right away. There were one or two with some work that could do exceptionally well, and she gave those authors her constructive criticism and was pleased to see they took it well. Not that it would have mattered much if they didn’t; they’d have shot themselves in the foot with her and, chances were, Tom would have snatched them up for Magnussen Publishing. She was fairly sure one of them was already treading waters with her competition so her criticisms were vaguer.

She, too, had her own little spy network at her competition. There was at least one person there who loathed Tom as much as she did, and they were having lunch together this afternoon.

Molly walked into the restaurant and spotted Mary right away. Mary was Tom’s PA, and she was, hands down, the best actress Molly had ever met. She’d been unhappy with Tom from the start and then livid when she got the details from Molly as to what _really_ happened between them. It helped Molly and Mary had been at uni together and were decently acquainted before all of the mess, a fact they both kept close to the vest. 

At first, Mary had wanted to quit, but she was locked into her contract for at least another year, so she decided corporate sabotage might be right up her alley. Though it was never huge secrets, because Tom had Mary run personal errands more than not, she’d very excitedly said she knew something big the night before and lunch reservations had been made. Even from a distance, it seemed Mary was eager to speak to Molly.

“William Holmes has returned to the publishing world,” Mary said before Molly even got in her seat.

Molly’s eyes widened. Her firm, Holmes & Holmes Publishing, was run by Mycroft Holmes, and she’d heard whispers of the enigmatic and very private William Holmes around the office, though she’d never met him. All she knew of her boss’s brother was that he was younger, had been a wunderkind who picked some bestsellers when he was still a teenager, and then walked away from the business to be a crime solver of some sort. A private detective...no, a _consulting_ detective, though much in the way of Charlie from Charlie’s Angels. No one knew what he looked like at the firm.

No one had actually seen him in nearly twenty or so years. As far as most people were concerned, William Holmes was dead and gone.

“How do you know this and I don’t?” Molly asked, picking up the water that was set at her space and taking a sip.

“Tom is running scared,” Mary said with a smirk. “Word is he’s decided to make Tom miserable.”

Molly’s eyebrows crinkled. “Why on earth would he do that?” she asked.

“Perhaps he feels loyalty to his family publishing company,” Mary said. “Tom used you, and in turn used Holmes & Holmes, so he’s after retribution.” She gave a slight shrug. “That bastard deserves it, though.”

“That bad?” Molly asked sympathetically.

“If I have to hear him badmouth you to that she-devil one more time I may backhand him,” Mary said. “I’m running around taking care of all the wedding work instead of anything _remotely_ professional because...” She trailed off. “The she-devil is preggers.”

Molly felt the breath leave her for a moment, and then she realized she was still holding the glass of water and brought it to her lips, chugging the rest down. “I see,” she said when she was done.

“I doubt it’s Tom’s,” Mary said. “She’s had an eye on a bloke in accounting for a while now. But Tom will take care of her better financially, so...” Mary reached over and patted Molly’s hand. “You deserve better than him, you know that, right?”

“I do, but still. Marriage, a family, a good job...” Molly sighed. “It’s just so _unfair_.”

“As picture perfect as everything seems, there are cracks there. I think if you get the right person, your relationship may have bumps along the way, but no cracks.”

Molly gave her friend a small smile and turned her palm upward so she could squeeze Mary’s hand. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Mary said. “Speaking of Mr. Right, are you even looking now, or…?”

“I asked Sherlock to put out a personal advertisement for me,” Molly said. Mary chuckled at that soundly. “What?”

“It will never see the light of day, love,” Mary said. “Your assistant is a bit...enamored with you, I suppose is the best way to put it? With everyone else, he’s a human robot. With you, he’s _human_.”

“I suppose it’s best to ask him not to do it, then,” she said. The waiter came then and she gave her usual order, pursing her lips while Mary gave hers. She absolutely refused to date anyone in a subordinate position to her. And while Sherlock was...very attractive, she could admit that to herself...she wasn’t about to do anything that could jeopardize their working relationship. She needed him by her side in more ways than she really wanted to think about. She _depended_ on him, and if things got awkward…

Well, she simply didn’t want them too. But with this new information, she wasn’t sure things would stay as they were right now.

Hopefully, they would.


End file.
